Being at a university with 72,000 undergraduates, you can’t walk through campus without seeing how culturally diverse our campus truly is. ASU is celebrating World Festival Week this month (February 20th-28th), which seems to create a silver lining in the cloud that has been lingering over ASU since one fraternity decided to throw an offensive party the evening prior to MLK Day.
At the end of the day, I’m sure everyone involved in that party thought what they were doing was just a reason to get wasted on a Sunday night because we didn’t have class the next day. But that act alone already actively dismisses the idea of what MLK day represents: respect for diversity; a celebration of a man who is considered the pioneer of the civil rights movement in America.
This event seemed to shed the speculative light on our school, which celebrates its cultural diversity on a daily basis. Just a few days before this act of ignorance, a woman found a recording of Martin Luther King making a speech at ASU at a Goodwill store in the Phoenix area.
ASU has become a melting pot of ethnicities and cultures, and with that comes a desire to understand those cultures and eliminate the stereotypes we form from social media and music. World Festival Week and MLK Day are important for two different reasons, but their purposes are the same: to spread knowledge of other cultures and remind of us how big this world truly is! Why not explore difference countries’ delicacies, play games and win prizes. Events are offered at different campuses, so be sure to check out the list below and bring a friend or two to explore and indulge in diversity on all ASU campuses:
February 20th-28th
Undergraduate Student Government’s Passport to Phoenix
5-10 p.m., Feb. 20, Student Center, Civic Space Park and Taylor Mall, Downtown Phoenix campus
International Carnival7-11 p.m., Feb. 21, Memorial Union, Tempe campus
Dine Around the World11 a.m.-1 p.m., Feb. 25, Fletcher Lawn, West campus
Community World Festival11 a.m.-1 p.m., Feb. 27, Student Services Lawn, Tempe campus
College of Technology and Innovation’s Thing on Thursday: World Fest4:30-6 p.m., Feb. 27, Student Union, Polytechnic campus
Admisson is free! Paid parking is available as well, or just get a nice walk across the street to campus in!